Sour Alba

Labour’s Lindsay Roy has won the Glenrothers by-election, beating the SNP by more than 6,700. The Nats had been widely expected to win the seat despite the fact that it was once safe Labour territory and is next door to Gordon Brown’s constituency.

The result is important for two reasons:

• It makes it more likely that Gordon Brown will lead Labour into the next UK General Election. While a challenge has been unlikely since the arrival of the credit crunch, a defeat in his kailyard would have weakened him within the party.
• It makes an independent Scotland less likely - as the result marks a serious brake on the momentum of the Scottish National Party. 

The stunning events in Glasgow East show that Scottish Labour needs to hurry up and choose its new leader so the new incumbent can be hounded out in the wake of the party’s shaming defeat.

According to the Holyrood Magazine website, the Scottish National Party has been given a ticking off by the Scottish Parliament’s Presiding Officer for making announcements to the press before they have been made to MSPs.

“The fundamental point is that we should not be reading in the press what is going to be said in the Chamber, we should read what has been said. I object strongly to detailed pre-announcement of Ministerial Statements which constitutes a discourtesy to this Parliament and, by extension, the people of Scotland.”

While I have sympathy with this I can’t help but think that the brooding Scot in 10 Downing Street might not learn from the party he hates oh so very much.

Gordon Brown’s been having a terrible time of late (as seen by headlines like “Immigration underestimated by 300,000″). Basically, since he chickened out of the General Election his press has been appalling.

Now this suggests one of two things to me:

A) Either, after years of waiting and plotting to become Prime Minister, he isn’t any good at the job.

Or

B) He took rather for granted all the controversial and superficial spinning that that slippery Mr Blair was renowned for. And, having not taken news management seriously, Broon is now learning what happens when a Prime Minister and his team lose their grip on the news cycle.